Asa Hornblow in the other room bombinating his chums about the Red Sox.
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Unfortunately, a chimera bombinating in a vacuum is, nowadays, only too capable of producing secondary causes.
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It would help us to gauge the probability of finding life elsewhere instead of bombinating in a vacuum of data, caught between inevitability and uniqueness.
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Who Could That Be at This Hour? is the first book in All the Wrong Questions. Lemony Snicket, who is a member of a secret organization, narrates his experience while he is taking apprenticeship to his chaperone. In this book, Snicket and his chaperone are assigned to find a lost statue known as The Bombinating Beast.
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As Lemony and his chaperone, S. Theodora Markson, investigate crimes, Snicket makes both friends and enemies, including Hangfire. The series runs alongside the story of Lemony's sister Kit as she completes a similar mission for V.F.D. Lemony's main mission is to protect a statue called the Bombinating Beast from various people who desire it, including Hangfire.
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The Haines family is reunited. Snicket now reveals that it was actually Stew Mitchum who killed Qwerty in the prison cell and the Officers Mitchum accused Theodora to save their son Stew, who was working for Hangfire all along. He then uses the statue of the Bombinating Beast to summon the real creature and when it arrives, Hangfire’s mask falls off revealing himself to be, Armstrong Feint, Ellington’s father.
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It is here that they get their assignment: They must steal the Bombinating Beast from the Mallahans. The Mallahans live in a lighthouse, which also used to be the home of the city's newspaper. Mr. Mallahan loafs about in his bathrobe while his daughter, Moxie Mallahan, continues to record the news of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, in hopes of eventually joining her mother, who works for a newspaper in the city. She shows Snicket the statue, which has been in the family for generations.
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He gets a lift from Pip and Squeak to a place along the railway line where he can jump aboard, and Moxie Mallahan who is also on board opens the window to let him in. She shows him a fake Bombinating Beast made out of cardboard, made by Ornette Lost to trick Hangfire. Dashiell Qwerty is found dead inside his jail cell, and Theodora is assumed to be the murderer by the Officers Mitchum. However, Lemony doesn't believe she did it, so he goes about the train looking for witnesses.
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The Bombinating Beast is a question mark-shaped sea monster that is said to be the same as the Great Unknown. It swims in the oceans that are near the City and is described by Captain Widdershins to be worse than Count Olaf. In The Grim Grotto, the Great Unknown is said to be larger than the Queequeg and the Carmelita. In The End, Kit mentions to the Baudelaires that the Quagmires, Hector, Captain Widdershins, Fiona, and Fernald were said to have been swallowed up by the Great Unknown.
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In The Penultimate Peril, Kit Snicket says that she intends to meet Captain Widdershins and is later mentioned water-skiing towards and, soon after, away from him. Kit had contacted all three of the Quagmire Triplets as well as their guardian Hector and had met with them and the crew of the Queequeg when their self-sustaining mobile home crashed into it. This reunion was short- lived, however, as all of the crew as well as the triplets were picked up by the mysterious '?' Shape (dubbed by Kit Snicket as "The Great Unknown"; implied to be the Bombinating Beast from All the Wrong Questions).
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